We told you earlier about British journalist and travel writer Jan Morris, who recently re-married her partner of almost sixty years. Before her sex change, Jan used to be James Morris—the first person to report the conquest of Mount Everest is 1953. James Morris was a very well-known reporter, and Bookslut brought to our attention this recent anecdote: years later, when Morris met the Queen of England as a woman, the Queen got very confused:

"[Morris] asked the Queen: "Do you remember when they climbed Everest for the first time, and the news came to you on the day before your coronation?"

"Yes, of course I remember," the Queen replied, to what she obviously thought was a foolish question.

"Well," said [Morris], "I was the person who brought the news back from Everest so that it got to you on time."

This left the bemused Queen wondering how this grey haired woman, or any woman, could have been the first with such dramatic news. Morris watched her reaction.

"Her eyes went cold," she said. "I felt sorry for her because she always has people to explain things, and there was nobody around to put her straight. She suddenly found herself in totally unknown territory."

Writers often re-make themselves from reporters to novelists to bloggers and back again, but few have remade themselves the way Jan Morris has. (Although she simply refers to it as "that sex change thing—so-called.")